It’s generally rare when two of my teams (Mets, Jets, Devils) play at the same time, but last night that was my dilemma as a fan with the Jets on Monday Night Football at 8:30, while the Devils were playing in Edmonton at 9:30.  Because the Jet game started an hour earlier I pretty much stuck with that all the way through as the football version of the Jets played well pulled off a Monday Night upset of the Falcons.  I was having a good night at that point, and the game ended around 11:30.  My plan after that was to off to bed after I listened to Rex Ryan‘s press conference over on SNY and just catch the Devil highlights today.  Especially with the Devils having an apparently safe 3-0 lead against the Oilers. Unfortunately before Rex was finished it got to 3-2 and I sighed and changed the channel. I would have been better off sticking to my original plan of going to sleep as the Devils suffered a complete and total meltdown in the third period, conceding four goals against an Oiler team that was getting booed off its ice after the second period.

Yes, the Devils came back and actually tied the game in the final minute with a nifty Patrik Elias bank shot off an Oiler defenseman in front, salvaging a point despite an eventual shootout loss – but as the infamous local ex-NBA star Derrick Coleman once said…’whoopdie dam* doo’.  To lose that game against a team that hasn’t been in the playoffs since Chris Pronger gave the organization the middle finger after 2006 (and sure didn’t look like a playoff team in its first 2 2/3 games this year) was completely inexcusable.  Not to mention potentially very costly.   Yes it’s only Game 3, but with the Schnieder-Luongo sideshow in Vancouver tonight followed by road games in Calgary, Winnipeg and Ottawa before coming home to face the Rangers in two weeks the Devils really can’t afford to throw away points.  So far the Devils haven’t done very much to prove the ‘experts’ wrong with their low predictions for the team’s final record this year.

If I actually watched the game I might try to focus on the positives a little – all of our new forwards scoring including Jaromir Jagr‘s first as a Devil in the first period, along with Damien Brunner getting his third (and the team’s first PP goal) and Michael Ryder his second of the year, all in the game’s first twenty-five minutes.  In fact until Elias’s late tally, the Devils’ only goals this season have been from forwards who weren’t on the roster last year.  Which means still no goals from Travis Zajac and Adam Henrique, among others.  Of course, the only part of the game I saw was the end of the meltdown and yet another pathetic shootout.  Amazingly, the Devils have only won something like four of their last thirty-five OT games in OT, with most getting decided in the shootout. Even facing career backup Jason LaBarbera, we were clearly overmatched in the skills competition where that’s the one aspect of the game the Oilers’ skilled forwards can fully show off their talent without having to worry about actual defenses.

Then again it’s not like our defense has provided so much as a speed bump toward the opposition over these first three games either with ten goals allowed and numerous other two-on-ones and quality chances as well.  No lead is ever safe with a Pete DeBoer-coached team, as we showed even in the ’11-12 playoffs, blowing three-goal leads twice (and amazingly winning both games).  After last night’s latest debacle the coach called it a ‘learning experience’.  So what does he do today?  Scratch Adam Larsson, who literally had nothing to do with any of the goals against the team last night.  Yes, he had a tough game against the Isles…but how about punshing Anton Volchenkov for a brutal first three games with ill-timed pinches and getting caught on the boards on the third goal last night?  Four games in six days and yet all our thirty+ defensemen and 35+ forwards are playing every game.  Only Larsson and Mark Fayne (finally in the lineup today, of course at Larsson’s expense) get scratched.  As silent as Fayne’s been about his shoddy treatment, Larsson was clearly unhappy over today’s lineup decision and I can’t blame him.  It’s obvious the coach loves his vets, his scrappy overachievers – Peter Harrold and Stephen Gionta – and is almost completely allergic to younger players.

It’s with lineup contreversy and a winless start hanging over the team’s head that the Devils go into Vancouver tonight to face the circus (Cory Schnieder facing off against former creasemate Roberto Luongo).  Of course goaltending won’t matter much if the Devils aren’t able to clean up the defensive part of the game. I’d really hate to see anything happen to DeBoer, despite my frustrations with him…but we’ve seen how fickle the NHL can be with the early firing of a former Stanley Cup-winning coach just yesterday. GM Lou Lamoriello may like DeBoer, but he’s also not going to sit idly by while a team he spent a lot of resources on in the offseason (money and a first-round pick in the Schnieder trade) flounders to a third playoff-less season in four years while having to cough up their first-rounder this year thanks to a merc that’s no longer here.  Perhaps it’s good I’ll be out tonight until about 10-10:30 so I’ll miss at least the start of the game, and probably won’t do another late night after the Devils cost me an hour plus of sleep last night thanks to their fiasco.